The Greatest Familiar
by Kutasan
Summary: As he was inspecting an oddity in the woods, Kurama, then newly born, was sucked into a new world. Intelligent, mighty and proud- how will the strongest of the Bijuu deal with his arrogant, petite summoner? Rated M for future wars and explosions powerful to atomize mountains. Second chapter in the works.


Right then, this idea got stuck in my head, it won't go away... This is a story challenge that I'll write for as far as my knowledge of Zero no Tsukaima goes. The challenge is as thus... One of the Void Mages is the summoner of the Lifdrasir (for those who don't know, Lifdrasir is what a wiki told me is the final Void familiar 'the Heart of God') and summons a Bijuu just after it's creation at the death of the Sage of Six Paths. Any Bijuu. And it's more powerful than any person, item (I.E. that giant robot thing from Gallia), or creature in her world, even at that age. How would a sentient mass of chakra capable of forming a body deal with the knats that try- ineffectually- to harm it or hurt it's summoner?

Aside from that no other Naruto characters are to be in the story, pretty much every other detail is yours to figure out.

So yeah. I'm gonna be writing this as well. Kurama is gonna tear up the place.

Kuta-san, signing out!

Edit: Kay, revised and bonus content has been downloaded. I was asked to give Kurama a human form and the ability to cast spells... That... Is an idea I'm not even going to contemplate. Kurama has more than enough power to level _anything_ in the world and reduce it to it's component atoms. I'm not giving him any more powers. I will however give him the ability to resize himself. Yes, he'll be able to shrink and possibly enlarge. After all his body is just corporeal energy right? With enough control over... Himself I guess, he could theoretically do this. It'll happen this chapter.

Also, Kurama, a little less than midway through the chapter, is _very _OOC. This is why. A familiar's familiar runes enact a desire to serve and protect the summoner on the familiar, yes? And that fact is- at least in part- the reason that- in canon- Saito doesn't particularly care to leave, correct? So, Kurama- fairly new to life, let alone an entirely different world that he hadn't been prepared for by his father figure- and also being an energy with it's own sense of self, and thus a fairly malleable being in all aspects, is a good bit more susceptible to mind altering effects, such as the ones that familiar runes employ. Add to that the fact that his particular runes give him empathy with all living things that have brains and that makes for an unusually kind and compassionate Kurama... Who is still prone to death threats when he feels them necessary. He is a very proud sentient energy life-form after all.

Further edit: In this story, only complementary elements can be layered, such as fire-earth/water-wind/water-earth. Wind-earth just blows some dust around or has an earth spell with some mild wind, whereas water-fire is just steam, or steam and hot water, and completely undirected as a battle spell... Might be a touch useful for a medical technique to get clean water quickly though.

Disclaimer: I don't own the stuff in here that's copyrighted.

* * *

Kurama, as he was named by his recently deceased father- a great and powerful human who had created him and his siblings from the remnants of the great demon known as the Juubi- the Sage of Six Paths, was looking for something to distract him from the pain and sorrow of losing the only man to ever look at him and his siblings as people and not weapons or mindless beasts. It had been but a singel week since the mans death... And thus only a month since Kurama's 'birth' within the seal that had once held the Juubi, and yet what his father had said already proved to be true. The other humans didn't want to see them as people, weren't ready to.

All they wanted was more people like Father... To use as the weapon that Father had refused to be for them. Which left Kurama alone, as all of his siblings- even Gyuuki, the eight tailed ushi-oni- had already been captured and sealed into new hosts or even inanimate objects... The hosts or 'Jinchuuriki' were being treated horribly by most in an attempt to make them loyal to those who didn't treat them badly, not that Kurama was awareof that fact.

Kurama was lonely and miserable, sequestered as he was in the forest.

So when he found an interesting looking green egg-shaped light source, he gladly took to inspecting it so that his misery would be forgotten for a time. As he did, though, he noticed something odd. There was no chakra in the lights' make-up- it was something else, something he couldn't quantify or categorize. An anomaly. He could do nothing to try and inspect it further unless he wanted to touch it, which he didn't, not knowing what it was. It could be some human trap, a method of sealing him that he'd not heard of.

In his quietly intense contemplative state, Kurama failed to notice the large brown bear charging at him that thought he was a scavenger trying to get at and kill her children. As it crashed into him he finally sprung into action, having been startled by it more than hurt as he was quite a bit larger than it. He jumped forward and turned around in midair- his instincts not taking into account the positioning of the light egg.

As he was sucked into what he was sure was a human sealing method, Kurama cursed the bear, the humans, the gods. Everything that had conspired to cause this.

Then he heard the voice.

It was young. Younger than him even- though he had noticed before that most humans sounded young when compared to him for he had a deep, older sounding voice- and female. She was calling out something about Familiars and beauty and power. He had no clue what to think about the Familiar thing, but the beauty and power thing stroked his ego a bit.

He decided that he'd give this human a shot, as his father had wanted... He would be this humans... Familiar?

* * *

Louise was nervous as she started the chant that was to summon her familiar. What if it summoned something useless and embarrassing? What she didn't allow herself to think of was the highly likely option of the spell just exploding and summoning nothing at all. "My strong, beautiful servant who exists somewhere in the universe, answer my plea and become my familiar!" She enchanted with some trepidation. And waited. For a few seconds it seemed the spell had literally done nothing, a first even for Louise. Some of the other students began to point and laugh before a plume of smoke- wider and taller than some buildings- erupted in the wide area that the students had cleared in anticipation of Louise's explosion.

At first, Louise was even more upset than if she'd summoned some small weak thing- like a songbird. Her familiar was smoke? But then she heard something. A deep rumbling filled the court, shaking them all down to their bones. The smoke began to clear and the students began to gape. The Zero- _Louise_- had summoned _this_ monstrous thing? Inconceivable!

It was a gigantic beast, a fox two-and-a-quarter stories tall with nine writhing tails whose movement made the winds stir and whose breath made steam in the air around it's mouth. This gargantuan beast, eyes red and malevolent looking, stared down at them until it spotted Louise and brought it's head down to look at her more closely.

And then it began to speak in a language they could not understand, and in a voice just as low and rumbling as its- his from the aforementioned voice's sound- snarling growl. "**Watashi ga sanshō shite kudasai, anata ga watashi o shōkan shita ningen, kyuu-bi-jū no saidai ni naru yō ni... Hijō ni yoku, watashi wa anata ni ataisuru to handan.**" (I see, so you are the one that has summoned me, the greatest of the nine tailed-beasts... Very well, I deem you worthy.) The beast then sat back on it's haunches and used it's... Hands? Yes, it had hands rather than paws on it's forelegs, hands with opposable thumbs. It used it's hands to pick up Louise and then proceeded to leap over the castles walls.

Once they'd landed again, the beast put her on the ground again and laid it's head alongside her. Louise seemed shell-shocked, but quickly she shock out of it, she' done it! Not even Tabitha's dragon Sylphid could match the majesty and obvious intelligence of her familiar! Oh! She hadn't completed the ritual yet! That must be why it had brought her here, to avoid breaking the castle if the process was painful! Louise walked up to her familiar happily and made the necessary incantations for the Bind Servant spell before kissing her familiars nose.

* * *

As the human who had summoned him leaned in to kiss his nose, Kurama looked curiously at her. She was a youngling, and she seemed to hold a lot of pain away behind a facade of pride, much like he himself had decided to after Father's death. The pain of whatever she had done was negligible, he'd felt worse when he and Gyuuki had fought shortly after Father had freed them before his death. As the process took place he found himself hearing things, whisperings in his mind of things he himself wasn't thinking.

_'I did it! I'm not a useless Zero! I do have an element... Though I don't know what it is... Maybe I could get my new familiar to show me what he can do? '_

These and other such thoughts filtered into his mind and Kurama learned about her in the most intimate way, from her very own thoughts. But this was an invasion of what she held sacred, he could feel it in the marrow of the bones he technically didn't have. If she knew he knew her thoughts, she would despise that about him. So he tried to stop the flow of thoughts. And stop flowing they did. Well, that was good, he could stop the intrusions from occurring. With time and effort he may even be able to train it into a passive scan of emotion rather than a full on intrusion into a persons mind, which would probably help in a fight. Which he knew would eventually happen.

Humans fought, Father had always said, it was their nature. As he looked further into the things he'd inadvertently learned from the girls mind, he found that he now had functional grasp over her language, could speak it from her memories of the words' meanings. He looked down at her in something resembling affection and spoke in her language.

"**My summoner, I am known as Kurama... And I am going to say this now, I will consent to being your familiar, but do not think to order me as a slave. I am your guardian, the one who will protect you from _anything_ that I deem as a threat to you. I go where you go, and if you try to order me to do something other than protect you I will ignore said order if I wish to.**" She blinked a bit in what seemed to be confusion, and opened her mouth in what Kurama assumed to be protest- from the look on her face- before he cut her off. "**You can tell me whatever you like, because you are to be my charge, and my friend. Now, do you wish to return to the school's courtyard? Your classmates no doubt worry for you.**" He was trying to seem like a father to her, someone to confide in so that he might protect her more fully, as he had charged himself to.

She nodded, a touch shakily perhaps, in response to his query and he picked her up in one of his hands before slowly climbing back over the wall- so as not to crush anyone in the courtyard. The students had sequestered themselves over in one corner, gossiping seemed a likely option to Kurama, and the teacher- one Jean Colbert from Louise's memories- was running toward the castle- or had been before one of the children screamed in fear because of him. Colbert turned and spotted him before casting a flame toward him and Kurama viewed the display with contempt. Such weak flames couldn't even affect him. Still though, Louise was in his hand which was in the path of those flames, and she would burn to cinders if he didn't move her out of the way.

He promptly did so and let the fire splash harmlessly off of him. Little Louise yelled at the man for attacking him as he climbed down the other side of the castle wall and into the courtyard. He then laid himself down in the courtyard and flicked his tails a bit, lightly so as to not destroy the earth beneath him, in an attempt to work some kinks out of them from the trip through the portal. As Colbert walked over to him once Louise had sorted out the misunderstanding, Kurama eyed him as one might an ant which was a fairly apt comparison from a size standpoint. Colbert was nervous, the ability he'd gained from Louise wasn't needed to tell him that much. He asked to look at and record the 'Familiar Runes' present on Kurama's snout.

Thinking about it a bit, Kurama gave Colbert a nod, to which the man let out a sigh of relief. Kurama found that amusing and made a small game of frightening the man with fake growls at inopportune (for the human) times while he made his sketch. As he finished the sketch, Colbert nodded to himself and muttered. "Unusual combination... I should look up their meaning in the library." Kurama let it go though as he had better things to do than deal with the man's eccentricities.

As Little Louise started to brag to the others about her familiar and Kurama looked at her in a slight bit of disapproval. Trying to get people who had previously ridiculed you to look up to you was giving them something new to ridicule you for. The girl didn't heed his look though and eventually the tall red-head with large mammaries made a hurtful comment about how even mutts had days they looked good. Kurama slammed his tail into the ground, causing a small localized earthquake, and picked the child up. Looking her in the eye, Kurama told the frightened girl one thing. **"Say another hurtful word toward my summoner and I _will_ devour you."**

She nodded slowly, with terror-filled eyes and Kurama put her back on the ground. The teacher tried to object. "Kurama-san, I really must object to your threat, these are my students, and I will not ha-a-a..." He trailed off as Kurama stood to his full height, well over a full story tall, dwarfing the man with easy and staring into his eyes without any semblance of mercy.

"**I am Louise la Blanc de la Valliere's familiar spirit am I not?"** The man gave a single, hesitant nod. "**Then I am to protect her, from any threat. I view emotional trauma and harassment as threats. So I am protecting her. Is that a problem?**" The mage shook, both his head and in his boots as the great beast before him lay back down and closed his eyes. "**Then there is no issue, so long as these children do not try to pick on her when I am unable to follow her, such as in hallways between classes.**" The children- some of them, not all- gained a contemplative gleam in their eyes at that. "**After all that warning was for all of them, and they have to leave this school for home at _some_ point,**** yes?**" They lost the calculative looks and gained fearful ones.

Louise looked both a little bit horrified and at the same time, glad of his protectiveness. He could tell this because it turned out that the... Whatever it was that his pact with his summoner had given him, was apparently easy to control through mental commands. Kurama had been experimenting with it while resting and had set it at a level that he felt comfortable at. He had even discovered that he could direct it's more intrusive levels at specific people so as not to be overwhelmed by an information overload.

This was a good thing.

As the excitement of the day wound down, Kurama watched as the humans around him took to the air. Their 'magic' was surely more versatile than the chakra that Father had taught of, if it could enable flight with such ease. Though less potent for it if the teacher was an exceptional example of things. There was a trade off he supposed, more control with wider capabilities but less power or less control and versatility but more power.

Come to think of it... Father had created their bodies from the left over _energy_ of the Juubi hadn't he? Perhaps his form, or at least his size, was as malleable as the energy Father had used to create him. There were a number of interesting possibilities there. With a smaller form, serving Louise as a guard would be far easier. Compression of energy... Maybe he could even improve that attack he had inherited through instinct from the Juubi- what he called the Imari- with such ideas.

But such thoughts were for later, when he didn't have to get up and follow his summoner as she walked to the building she lived in. He bade her goodnight as she entered and affectionately rubbed her head with a finger- being careful not to hurt her.

* * *

Jean Colbert, a former military man who had taken to researching after retiring from that line of work, dropped the book he was reading. The girl... She had summoned a familiar of legend! One of the Founder Brimir's own personal guards! And it had_ acknowledged_ her! This... The headmaster had to be told of this... Tomorrow, after he could think more clearly... This, it was a discovery of beyond monumental proportions... The Lifdrasir, summoned to the world once more by a girl with no purported skill in magic- it was possible that she was a void mage- no, that was a bold conclusion to jump to, one far outside of his expertise to judge by.

The morning- or afternoon since it was nearly seven in the morning as it was- that was when he would tell the headmaster. After a good long sleep.

He fell asleep at his desk.

* * *

In the morning, after having groggily woken herself from a slumber in which she had had pleasant dreams, Louise walked alongside her familiar toward the dining hall. He was bigger than the doors. She was so happy she'd gotten such an obviously powerful familiar. Giving his leg a hug and leaving Kurama outside to make nice with the other students familiars, Louise only barely restrained herself from skipping into the dining hall for breakfast. She wasn't worried about Kurama's food situation- on their way here he had said that he didn't actually need to eat, and she trusted that he would know something like that about himself.

Kirche sidled away from her when Louise looked like she was walking towards her. Malicorne looked away from her face when she gave him a greeting... They were all afraid of her now. She denied the hurt she felt, telling herself that she only needed Cattleya-oneechan, Wardes, and Kurama. That as long as she had them no one else mattered.

But it did hurt, and it was already tearing her apart inside. And while she was unaware of this rather pertinent fact, Kurama could feel that pain through his newly obtained power.

* * *

The girl was hurting inside. He could feel it, as acutely as if her pain were his own. And he needed to be there for her. She had told him he wasn't allowed inside, that no familiar was, and he couldn't even fit inside the doorway- but damn their rules and damn his size, she needed him and he was going to be there for her.

He concentrated on the flow of energy within himself and latched onto that feeling. '_This is my body,'_ He told himself sternly. '_Father gave me the tools I need to control it's shape... The henge is more than an illusion with me, because I _am_ the illusion.'_ With that thought in mind- indeed, imbedded in his thoughts and being drawn from to make the task easier- Kurama attempted to use the Henge no Jutsu as a physical transformation, rather than the illusory one he had been told it was.

A large plume of smoke later and the world seemed much bigger than it had before. He took a good look at things and tried to gauge his size. His father had been around two-hundred centimeters... The girl was a rough one-hundred and thirty give or take a few and in relation to the arch way she had looked to reach up to around it's two-fifths mark... He was currently at around the three fifths mark so... Horse sized? Maybe a touch more?

It didn't matter now, he could fit through the doors now and she still had that unbearable pain being denied.

He sprinted to the doors and body tackled them. They slammed open and Kurama looked for his petite summoner amidst the sudden and near absolute silence he had caused. There, by the corner, three seats open on either side of her and with people- those who hadn't immediately looked at him when he smashed the door open- giving her fearful looks. She was looking at him confusedly. He walked up to her quickly, but with the dignity he felt the need to keep present with the other humans watching, and sat beside her.

"**My** **Little Louise," **He began, getting a startled gasp from her, which he was a bit perplexed by but immediately disregarded. "**I am here for you." **He gently rubbed his forehead against her arms. "**Come with me, now.**" He spoke gently, trying to soothe her.

She gave a slight hiccuping sob, only those directly across from her at the next table could hear her, not that they felt badly for causing her to feel badly. He almost growled at them, but held himself back because he now realized that his threats from the other day had been the cause for this situation. He urged her up onto his back and she climbed up slowly. "**Hold on tightly, and place you head against my fur, it will help to keep you from being torn from my back by the wind, I have somewhere a fair distance away to take you."** That he said, for the benefit of not giving the crowd the pleasure of knowing they had hurt her. To her, quietly enough that they wouldn't hear, he whispered. "**You may cry into my fur, I will merely take you to the forest to give you somewhere private to let your pain show...**"

She was confused now and he could feel that, but nodded into his fur- having laid her head there as he had told her to- and began to let the tears of loneliness and pain fall into her familiar's fur.

He then exploded into motion, clearing the distance from where he had stood to let her get astride him to the doors of the dining hall in a single effortless leap that took no more than a instant for him to cross. Sprinting from there to the nearest battlement wall, Kurama leaped over it as well and picked the pace up some, having sensed the intentions of the redheaded harpy with dark skin and knowing she was going to attempt to follow.

He would be surprised if she could follow him once he got to the woods, which he knew from the trail he was currently tearing in the ground behind him that she would be able to track him _to. H_e didn't have the shape of a fox because he liked the color red. It was because he had the cunning and survival skills of one, and could hide like a ghost in the shadows if he had to.

It wasn't even the span of a minute before Kurama reached the edge of the forest, he slowed before getting into the thicker parts of it. Searching out a spot for a den to be dug, Kurama did his best to ignore the now body shaking sobs that Louise was giving out. He couldn't bear this, to have the girl that he was all too quickly coming to view as his own kit be in such pain. She was talking now as well, telling him of her pain.

"I thought I had finally done something right Kurama!" She agonised to him. "I thought that they would accept me now, acknowledge that I was worth something! But now they're all scared of me, and even though it's your fault I can't be mad at you because you're being so kind and were just trying to protect me!" There was anger there, and pain, and the kind of loathing that can only come from having all your hopes raised and then shattered by the very thing that had raised them. He hated that he had done this to her.

Finding a spot and starting to dig, and also being careful not to leave signs that the earth was too freshly dug, Kurama let her continue in her saddened and angered outpouring of emotion. As the seconds, and the minutes when the den took it's necessary time to be dug, ticked by she grew less angry and more and more depressed.

He finished after ten minutes and crawled into his new home before urging her off of his back and wrapping his tails and then his body around her so as to provide her with warmth. And then he began to console her, as Matatabi had tried to console him directly after fathers death and before the humans had captured her.

"**Louise...**" He began in a solemn tone. "**I was trying to keep you safe when I made those threats, we both know this, but I failed to take into account what their reactions would be. Through this oversight, I have hurt you and for this I am sorry. I raised your hopes, made you think you would no longer be ridiculed as 'the Zero' and then- through my own thoughtlessness, I crushed those hopes by turning your classmates scorn into fear. I wish for you to be my friend, my kin in all but blood and name, and to do this I have to tell you the truth... I am not some ancient being that has been blessed to you as a** **guardian,**" She was silent and unmoving through all of this, having given in to a melancholy that disturbed Kurama, but this revelation got her to lift her head and stare at him.** "I am only a few weeks old and I haven't had much experience interacting with anyone, let alone these skittish and weak humans that would deem themselves your peers. As such, I need you to keep me from making so foolish a mistake again. I need you yo inform me of when I am taking my protection of you in the arena of emotion to an extreme and reign me in at those** **times.**"Breaking eye contact with him and snorting at this, she was clearly thinking that reigning in so large and powerful a creature was beyond her... Which it would be if he weren't her familiar. Tipping her head back up with the tip of his tail, Kurama caught her eye again. "**Can you do that for me, my Little Louise?"** She teared up a little at the endearment and nodded at him, relieving him because he could feel that she was coming out of her melancholy, if only a little.

She snuggled into him and murmured that she was taking a nap and to take her to the castle. He did so.

* * *

Back at the castle, once Kurama had returned, the Headmaster of the school had come to greet them and inquire as to where they had been. Kurama told him some false story about gathering rare herbal ingredients he had smelled that he felt might be useful later on in the girl's life. Old Osmond backed down and left them to their own devices. Kurama then took the opportunity to head to the dining hall to make right the situation he'd created.

He opened the doors as lunch was starting and walked sedately towards the raised dais where the teachers ate and sat regally at it's base before looking out at the students who were staring at him.

**"I find myself somewhat disappointed in both myself and all of you." **He began, causing a bit of a stir. "**You are all supposed to be nobles and have standards of behavior that are beyond such ignoble acts as bullying and ostracization... And yet my summoner Louise has been systematically subjected to both while attending this school. However, such actions on your behalf lead to me making a rash decision in anger, something I try to limit myself from doing. As such, I wish to formally apologize to one Kirche ****Augusta Frederica von Anhalt Zerbst** for the grievous insult of threatening her in so base and vulgar a manner. I was merely trying to keep Louise from harm."

The girl stood and walked over to him with fear still lingering in her eyes, but obviously about to make some sort of symbolic gesture. "I can see that even a familiar can have manners." She said and offered her hand for a handshake. "Your offer of apology is accepted and I shall endeavor to not allow myself to fall beneath the standards of behavior I was raised with again." Kurama took her hand in his and shook it firmly.

"**Good."**

* * *

It was later that day, whilst sunning in the courtyard beside the dining hall while Louise ate, that Kurama got a real taste of how utterly backwards this little society was when he felt the complete rage of the blond ponce in the corner- who was two-timing his partner with a girl years younger then him and made pretty but meaningless platitudes to each to excuse his behavior- when a maid tried to return his girlfriend's gift of perfume and through this delay had revealed the boy's treachery. Was doing a good deed truly an offense if it inconvenienced a noble? He didn't like that.

And then the blonde who had been wronged believed the panicked boy's false claim of ensorcellment. and went to strike the younger girl who'd been so happy at the boy's pretty words the night before. This would not do.

Moving faster than any of them could see, Kurama moved to in front of the first year girl and shielded her with his body. He didn't feel the hit, the blonde girl- Mon-something or other- didn't have the strength necessary to make him feel pain, or really even anything. He looked down on her and growled, before turning to the younger- whose name he took from the previous argument to be Katie- and softly nuzzled the top of her head before shooing her away.

Returning attention to the two blonds he noted that the girl was hitting him multiple times now. He sat and straightened to his current full height of roughly three meters and said. "**Are you finished, little human?**" She stopped. "**Good because I find such displays of childish temper distinctly unappealing, regardless of the ineffectuality of the tantrum in question."** The blond boy attempted to object to this view of things, but Kurama cut him off before he could get started. "**And as for you? You are a petty, small-minded, chauvinistic, womanizing, ill-mannered, lying worm who doesn't deserve the good fortune of the looks and silver tongue you were gifted with. I find your attempt to dodge taking responsibility for two-timing an insult to your race. You need to learn your place. Just because you happen to be a good looking male doesn't mean that you are the Founder's gift to females, it means you had the good fortune to be born to attractive parents."**

The boy whose name he thought started with a 'G' stopped and flushed in embarrassment when he realized that the student body was taking this familiar's side. And Kurama could read from his body language that he wanted to lash out, but was afraid to because Kurama was obviously powerful. And reading the whelps thoughts revealed that he was restraining himself from lashing out at Louise instead, for fear of his retaliation.

So he stormed off and mumbled threats under his breath. The nine-tailed chakra beast let the boys' obvious fit of temper go because from the child's thoughts he could decipher that he would calm eventually and was more embarrassed than angry. A tad scared as well.

The people in the area who had been agreeing with Kurama's world view on nobility and proper behavior were thinking things along the lines of how he was a truly noble familiar and that if Louise had summoned him than she obviously had some kind of power and they should treat her as though she weren't any different from them just because all her spells failed. He could appreciate how their thoughts were changed, though they were a minority among the students, and hoped that such a view could spread and prosper.

Returning to his charges side, Kurama gave a sigh of content as he went back to eating the steak she had given him. Even if he didn't need to eat, the stuff still tasted damn good.

* * *

**Old Osmond Third Person ****POV:**

Old Osmond gave a sigh as he used his familiar to peep. This act had been getting to him recently. Being a harmless old man so that he could keep an eye on potentially powerful individuals while they were young for the crown- and therefore the military- was tiresome in the extreme. But still, it was a royal order and even if he despised war, he was old enough to know that it would come to them eventually anyway. He also realized that though her familiar was obviously powerful, and thus she was as well- regardless of her spell failure percentage being one-hundred percent, he could not in good conscience report Louise la Blanc de la Valliere to the military yet. She needed to find out her element so that they could teach her spells and hopefully get her interested in a military career.

But the potential power she could hold... It may be a return of her mother, Karen the Heavy Wind. As he played the senile fool and debased himself before his secretary and was- resultingly- used as a doormat, he heard heavy, running steps approach the room. Before the door burst open both he and the woman were back in their usual positions, she sorting paperwork at her desk, he staring out at the grounds... What were those children doing? The nine-tailed fox familiar was there too and- by the Founder's Familiars it was fast!

The fire mage teacher- Jean Colbert was talking to him though, he'd need to answer him soon. What was he saying?

"- And so I need you to look at these right now!" The boy- by Osmond's standards- said while showing him a sketch of some runes and a book.

Old Osmond looked over the rune combination... Meaning 'The Heart of God?' Why did that title sound familiar? Familiar... He took a look at the text printed on the book and immediately saw why the lad was so concerned. He sent the woman out and set up a sound-proofing spell so that he might converse in privacy with the boy and got down to it.

"So, Jean, you believe that the Valliere girl is the summoner of the Lifdrasir?" He started off.

Colbert nodded in an excited seeming fashion. "Yes, the runes are an exact match and it seems to be quite powerful though we don't have any real, written, _factual_ knowledge about the Lifdrasir's abilities so we can't draw any conclusions in that regard." He seemed a trifle put off by this tidbit. And it was true enough. Historical accounts of the Familiar's of Brimir always left the Lifdrasir's exact abilities vague, likely because it's powers weren't flashy and obvious like the Windalfr, Gandalfr and Myozthirirn. "We need to tell the Palace about this immediately!" He continued, excited once more. "Imagine a Familiar of Brimir alive again in the modern era!"

Old Osmond could do that... And take the logical next step and say that the Lifdrasir's summoner, by rote of being it's summoner, was a Void mage- and thus far to powerful for the war-hungry fools at the Royal Palace to sink their teeth into. They'd use her and the Familiar as weapons and abandon them at the soonest convenience, which the old mage found to be an unacceptable outcome for such a violent girl. She might survive and use her power to annihilate the kingdom.

Explaining the base of these ideas to the younger man beside him took little enough time. Now he had to come up with a plan wherein the Palace could not find out about the girl or her status as a Void mage.

* * *

**Normal POV:**

Kurama spent the next few days quietly accompanying Little Louise to her classes and consoling her when she failed to do spells. He asked her to go to the library and get some of the books on familiars, runes and magic there so that he might learn from them a method of using his own energy to do things. He didn't tell her that of course he used the excuse of needing to know more about the world he was in. She knew he was young so she thought it a legitimate enough request, and soon returned with the books he'd requested. One of those books was entitled, _The Familiars of the Founder__ Brimir_, and when he got to the Lifdrasir entry he stopped and stared at the sketch of the runes therein. They were... Well, _familiar_ to him, though he knew not why. He asked Louise to come over and tell him if she'd seen these runes before.

"Oh! Those are your runes, Kurama!" She said excitedly. "You must be powerful, and your predecessor quite famous if you have runes that were put into a book like this! What book is it?"

Kurama was somewhat slack-jawed at the thought that he was a familiar of Brimir... How did that even work? Little Louise was most assuredly not this culture's messiah-figure... So why had he received the runes? Maybe any Void mage could instill these runes on their familiar? Which would mean...

Louise screamed in protest when he showed her the books title and showed her the text accompanying the runes he had. Then she fainted, mumbling in her sleep that she couldn't be worthy of the honor of having him as a familiar.

When she awoke a few minutes later, she seemed reluctant to accept the logic behind his argument that she _had_ to be a Void mage, because the only known Void mage- and the only known summoner of a Lifdrasir- was the Founder, and that by summoning him she had shown the capability of being able to do something that only a Void mage had been capable of before.

"But I've never even properly cast a spell!" Was one of her various protests.

**"And that's likely because you've been trying to use an element that isn't yours!" **Kurama countered. **"Can a fire mage use water spells? No! They have been proven to react violently with the fire mage's innate magical connection to fire and fizzle out! Trying to use one of the lesser elements instead of the one you're naturally in tune with likely causes these explosions because your magic is too potent for the element you're trying to use!"**

She had been more accepting of things after that logical and well-thought rebuttal, though it had still taken another twenty minutes to get her to accept that she was a Void mage. He'd had to bring up other things from the other books he'd read prior to this discovery, like the fact that all the Royal lines of Halkeginia were descended from the Founder and that the Valliere family _was_ related to the Royal Family of Tristain. That had been mentioned toward the end of the argument.

End~

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Okay, this is the revision of chapter one with extra bonus content. I had to rewrite a lot of it because it felt too rushed and honestly it still does... But regardless, this is what I'm giving you and I hope you all enjoy it.

Kuta-san signing off.


End file.
